


Angels And Alcohol

by Symmet



Series: Unfinished Thoughts [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crowley is kind of the main character, M/M, for a bit at least, then back to the boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symmet/pseuds/Symmet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angels and alcohol and all that good stuff (well, I say alcohol, but you never really know with angels and demons involved.)</p><p>Unfinished.</p><p>So the Winchesters might be in a bit of a pickle, which means Crowley gets called in. </p><p>And then all Hell breaks loose (metaphorically, of course).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels And Alcohol

**Author's Note:**

> may i remind u that it is in the Unfinished Thoughts series bc it is unfinished work. thank.  
> pls enjoy

They don't have many choices when Crowley finds them. They are growing desperate and sharp around the edges, Dean remembering his weakness to say yes, Sam remembering the vivid feeling of power when he drank, and Castiel holding on to what would soon be the dredges of his grace.

Crowley supposes he can give one more good attempt at fighting before the world is claimed by the inevitable, right?

"So there's a building only humans can enter or leave." he says quickly to the edge of an angel blade directed at his forehead, "And I thought we could use that to some semblance of an advantage."

Castiel does not change his stance, nor does he move the edge aimed at him, but Dean and Sam are sharing glances in surprise.

Sam is shaking his head because trusting Crowley, no matter how temporarily aligned they were in goals, seemed stupid.

But Crowley supposes Dean doesn't mind if something is stupid if it has a chance of working.

"You got a plan that's better than ours?" Dean says, gruff, not trusting Crowley but ultimately unwilling to sacrifice his brother - selfish, is what Crowley sees inside him, but if Crowley had believed the little strip of meat called Sam Winchester could contain and then control the entity called "Father" by other demons, then he wouldn't be here.

"Just about _any_ plan is better than yours." he grinds out, hands still up as Castiel squinted even more at him, which was only intimidating when one factored in the angel blade, which Crowley was definitely doing.

"What does it involve?" Dean said slowly, a hand up to halt the argument growing in his brothers throat.

"It involves me potentially ending up eternal chew toy to Satan and Co. because I'll be attempting to infiltrate the deepest, mostly guarded bloody part of Hell." Crowley ground out in frustration.

Dean dipped his head, catching the meanings behind the words, "Okay." he said, "And how you gonna go about doing that?"

Crowley put his hands down, then nodded meaningfully at Castiel, giving him a pointed look until the blade was also lowered.

"I learned something about this building on the grapevine a couple decades ago. Followed it up. Seemed like if I ever needed to, I could turn myself human temporarily and find a nice little niche to hide away from... Non-human threats." he said slowly, gaze now twisting to meet Castiel's.

That was, perhaps, the moment that he caught Sam's attention, as well. After all, he had now given up a hide-out where Sam and Dean could potentially follow and easily kill him without him having any supernatural backup.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"Eternum." Murmured Castiel, "But Eternum was lost."

Crowley scoffed, "Sure. But God's toys don't stay gone for long. He made them to last. No archangel is going to be able to blast it open, even with the army of Heaven at his back - or the floodgates of Hell."

Castiel frowned, shaking his head, "No. It's too dangerous. The angels are adept at... Finding loopholes to rules." He grimaced.

"You mean like torturing your vessel until they say yes?" Crowley teases, which gained him a cold glare, "Luckily, we're expecting that."

"We are? Why?" said Sam, eyes narrowed.

Crowley grinned a terrible grin, arms thrown wide "Why, because we're going to kill Satan."

\-----

"What do we need."

Crowley's answer to Dean's immediate question was simple.

"Well, first we're going to need a well informed, potentially uncooperative individual. I have a list of ones that would be suitable for our... Purposes." Crowley says, and with a flourish pulls out a lip of paper with a list of demon names scrawled on it in his tiny, cursive writing.

That leads them off on a hunt for one - any, unfortunately, except for Meg, who Crowley doesn't trust to not manage to escape and then give them all away, all the while refusing to be of any conclusive value - of Lucifer's favorite brats, as Crowley explains how they need to plan ahead.

He sends Castiel off to find out what would be potent enough to weaken an archangel enough that it could be killed with some viable chance.

Meanwhile, the hunt for a faithful demon went on as he went to gather important things - forcing them to communicate over the phone, which Crowley liked about as much as the idea of going down to Hell to fuck with Lucifer's plans while he was hopefully away from home. Which was to say, not at fucking all.

In a dense and heavily magicked forest, he whispers into the receiver of his charm protected phone.

"Not only will I be planting information so the demons find out first -" he tells Dean as he retrieves some very old, luckily secure documents from where he'd hidden them at the base of a statue that housed a sleeping hellhound of terrifying proportions, "But I'm, in all likelihood, going to be having to actually go down there to alter whatever solution the Devil comes up with to get in. Quite fucking possibly while he's home."

He hangs up and departs before anyone - or anything - catches him.

\----

After Castiel is done "testing" their "informant", he flies out to find Lucifer's bane (or as Dean puts it, his "cryptonite"). A root that could only be found at the tree of knowledge.

Squirrel and Moose head out to get ready to barricade themselves in God's left over Rubix Cube and Crowley is left alone at home base. Well, except for the informant.

Who is currently shackled to the wall. Crowley is reading a fourteenth rate magazine (the kind from dentist offices) when he hears something he would personally refer to as incredibly unsettling and definitely not what he needed before he ventured down into the homey pit of Hell where his "Father" waited and crunched on the bones of any demons that gave him the opportunity.

"Croooowwwwwleyyyyy."

He turns a face marked completely with some mixture of disgusted shock towards the previously healthy follower of Satan in the adjacent room. That might be why he misses his mansion so much. There was a clear distinction between dungeon and living quarters.

The leering face grins a bloody smile his way.

He looks on in morbid fascination before turning back to the article on how to 'Slim Quick in Under Five Weeks For That Christmas Party' (it was an outdated issue, both in month and year). It's when he flips the page that he hears it again.

"Crowwwwleeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyy."

He closes the magazine thoughtfully, staring at the cover which shows the new hottest trend, Britney Spears, as according to its date.

"Crowwwwlllleyyyyyyy come heeeereeee."

"You know," he says conversationally as he set it down and swaggered over, "I thought Castiel had quite undone your speaking functions."

He walked up to the grinning - and partially toothless - demon. In one visceral motion, he'd slapped the demon so hard that the demon's blood and spit splattered on the wall several feet away, chains rattling as it was restrained from being hurled across the room in their wake.

"Evidently I was mistaken." he says cheerfully as the demon coughs, spitting out another bloody molar at his feet.

He inspects his hand distastefully, like it was now contaminated, as the demon recovers. It swings it's head back up to grin at the short, unamused demon.

"There's something you must know." The demon grins, blood dripping from the abused gums.

"You know, if it's bleeding, it means you don't brush often enough." Crowley intones calmly, contemplating the thought of slapping the demon again, this time hard enough to not just dislocate or fracture the jaw.

"Something the others would not believe."

Crowley squints at the heaving mass of flesh that cages a very desperate demon.

"Oh yes? And I... what? Care?"

"You'll need to if you want everything to turn out the way they want it to."

Crowley frowns. He doesn't necessarily want what they want, but the information can't hurt, can it?

"Did Meg tell one of her favorites all of her deepest secrets?" he coos.

"No," the demon gasped out, laughing, as Crowley stepped aside to avoid the spray of blood He becomes busy with drawing out a handkerchief to wipe some blood off his wrist..

" _But Lucifer did_."

Crowley tilts his head, "Well," he says softly, "You have my attention, at least."

Even though he doesn't believe for a moment that Lucifer would share anything with demons.

\-----

The space was called Eturnum formally, but it had many other names, the Site of Redemption, or another name was Latin for consequence or something. It was, for better lack of a term, a cop out. What it meant didn't matter - not to the angels. Consequence? Stalemate.

It was probably going to last the Winchesters about as long as it would take before the Impala's engine revved up again.

Sam and Dean knew this, of course, holed up in the small, vaguely un-enticing building. They had been promised quite resolutely that once the angels started looking they wouldn't rest, and then it was just a matter of time. Any flaw was big enough to serve their "greater purpose". No matter how many of their own they sacrificed.

And it wasn't like the angels would be alone in this.

Demons had a penchant for showing up in Sam's wake in their foolhardy attempts to bag their "Father's" most precious new toy. Or at least, that seemed to be the general consensus on how they viewed the whole thing.

They, alongside the angels, would sniff along the borders of the building's boundaries, like hell hounds growling at the threads of future prey. Even if only an archangel would probably be able to make it through the wards, the moment they realized that, well, then Sam and Dean would have basically handed themselves over, trapped in a small inconspicuous building with a deadly angel and walled in by the self proclaimed prosecutors of fate, angels and demons alike, each vying towards their supposed Father's attention.

So why, one might ask, would Sam and Dean seek out what would, a smart person might assume, end up becoming a colossal failure on their part to avoid their imposed fates?

At first, the angels and demons calculated this, wary of a trap, already once bitten by the little bees that Sam and Dean Winchester were. Castiel was nowhere to be seen, which led to greater suspicions, even though he would have been little more than human, as well. And only one archangel could likely inhabit - trick - the building at any given time - so it stood to reason that a pit of holy oil awaited the one that would eventually enter. But they also figured that Sam and Dean Winchester were only humans, and like bees, had lost their stingers and had no more tricks up their sleeves. And even if they did sting one last time, they could always resort to starving them out - or until they died. Either way, the mindless soldiers started concerning themselves with finding a way in before anything else.

But, of course, Castiel was not the only ally the Winchester had in the war against The Holy and the Hellish.

And so it was that the demon Crowley made no mark upon any of the two brothers' enemies' minds and passed into something of an oblivion in their affairs.

This would, of course, be a mistake on their parts.

\----

When Michael was finally called in, the flaw had already been discovered - by the demons - and Lucifer was already there. They shared nor spoke anything with or to each other, and so when the angels found the flaw, the demons had already discovered how to utilize it.

The building was old, yes, by human standards, but was quite inconceivably as old as angels. An inconspicuous memento of their Father's power, it was neither to be destroyed nor conquered by either sides' brute force.

If one wished to enter the building, then one had to consume an elixir that marked them as human in most respects. They would not become human, but would instead dampen their powers for the desired effect. This way of gaining entrance was in no way official, instead the eldest children of their father simply seeking out a glitch in his system and then exploiting it by slipping in past the break in the code.

It was, for better or worse, something of a hack job rather then anything respectable.

So Lucifer, before his elder brother was even summoned, had the plans created for the as of yet never before made potion. It would start with them.

And he intended that by them, it too would finish.

\-----

Lucifer watched on warily as the ingredients were brought in, an envoy passing him by for the twelfth time that day, already on his way out. Many polyjuices and mixtures had been created by angels - it was something in the way they saw their Father's world that turned obstacles into math problems that they immediately set about solving, knowing instinctively how to go about it.

Lucifer was anxious, and even though he didn't fully let it on, his self proclaimed "children" could feel it. His own anxiety coupled with their desire to please him made them rush, perhaps more than they would have otherwise, silent but unified, a strange break from common Demonic character.

Lucifer did not want Michael to get to the Winchesters first. He wouldn't stand for it. He knew Michael would take one look at Sam and send him through a window so Lucifer could pick up the pieces. Michael was more about smashing things or otherwise planning how to smash them. He was a brilliant general, but a lacking tactician.

And the icy thunder that rang between their graces when he entered the site of Redemption still vibrated in Lucifer's chest. No, he had to get in first.

So he spent much of his time getting the actual ingredients rather than overseeing how they went in, having already relayed the directions clearly and concisely, knowing that his followers were well aware that failure was not an option.

Perhaps if he, too, had not been so quick to come and leave, he would have caught the whiff of an uninvited visitor upon his kingdom's grounds.

But as it was, already frantic to put him at ease, Crowley was not halted once, undetected on his descent into the bowels of Hell, where he would make his way into Lucifer's lair, and stowed away carefully with him was something Lucifer would admittedly never want anywhere near there.

He would have to use it as a substitute for something else Lucifer would find integral to the potion's reliability.

The short, ill tempered demon was sweating profusely, not just the fiery heat, cloak drawn tight and black eyes narrowed on anyone who so much as brushed by him. He fingered a small pouch at his waist, praying not to god but not his "father", either, that that said "father" would not be home.

He was nearing the end of a long hall that he knew would open up to reveal the chambers he was reliably informed held the beginnings of a very powerful elixir and it's assembled but not yet fully integrated ingredients. The golden handle of the pale door was within sight, glinting beckoningly to the demon.

That was of course when a guard stomped his staff on the ground, growling out the ever eloquent greeting of,"Hey!"

Crowley stopped, frozen, hood still covering his very recognizable face. He didn't turn to look at the other demon until it ground out, "Who're you?"

Crowley emotionlessly said, "Drop off, one of the ingredients." emptying his voice of any accent, hoping the vagueness of the answer was not a complete and utter give away.

"Come over here." it ordered coldly. He his hand went to the pouch, and he pulled it off for the soldier to overlook. A gloved hand took it from him, pulling on the draw strings and tipping it until the twisted root of a heavenly body fell into the guard's palm. Heavy silence folded over them. If Crowley had been human, he would have passed out from cardiac arrest by now.

"This is what, exactly?" The guard asked skeptically.

Crowley swallowed and began to recite, "Vitmenx root. For the third addition during the fourth phase, after the holy blood of our Father has been mixed in and stirred six hundred and sixty six times counterclockwise -"

"Okay, okay." the guard said. Crowley breathed out a tiny sigh of enormous proportions. This guard was a grunt. No clue what the potion required, let alone what the ingredients looked like.

He put the root back in, drawing the strings and motioning as if to hand it back. Crowley reached out and took it in his palm, but as his fingers closed over it, the gloved hand curled vice-like around his wrist, twisting until the pale skin of his underarm showed, damp with sweat.

"Father doesn't like it when the faithful remove their hoods." the guard said, smiling slightly as he dipped his head to the side, pressing painful pressure into Crowley's arm, "But I am curious as to why you're sweating so much - after all, Father burns cold."

Crowley swallowed as a creeping grin settled on the guard's face. "Besides, this is hell sweet hell. The family is finally complete. You shouldn't be feeling -" a slight noise escaped Crowley's lips as they felt the bones in his wrist beginning to be crushed, "Out of place."

Before Crowley could answer, the guard twisted in a sharp, forceful movement, forcing the demon with a hiss onto his knees -

"Father!" he gasped out.

"What?" the guard murmured, putting his ear right by the hood mockingly. They both knew he would pull it down in a moment, and there would be Crowley, and then everything would be over before it had even begun.

But Crowley thought of himself as a fairly decent actor. And coupled with the fact that his life was on the line, he had extra passion to put into this particular performance.

"We cannot fail Father. I cannot fail him." Crowley snarled, ripping his mutilated arm from the other demon's hold, "You are a traitor, trying to prevent his dream from coming to fruition!" he was actually quoting here, but in that particular experience he had been the "traitor" and the demon saying it very quickly had it's head lopped off, mostly because Crowley had been bored. Now, however ironically, it was Crowley's turn to play the part of suffering but faithful Satanist. Crowley curled his fingers around the pouch as he placed it on his chest, his other hand, hidden by the cloak, closing around the hilt of a very small, very vicious blade. But subtly was the point of this mission, and bloodshed would reset them at the beginning, if he even managed to escape unscathed.

The demon leaned back, waiting.

"I cannot fail." Crowley repeated, every ounce of truth trembling in his voice.

The demon opened his mouth in surprise... just as who should it be but Meg rounding the corner.

"Well, well, well." she crowed triumphantly as Crowley's blood ran cold, "If it isn't the biggest piece of shit hell has the pleasure of offering our "cause"."

Crowley's grip on the hilt turned slack - he was outnumbered, yes, usually that meant escape was the feasible course of action. But against Meg? He wasn't going to survive - or at least, he would be alive, but as Meg's personal chew toy for the rest of his very painful life.

"You know," she said, chuckling darkly as Crowley twisted his neck to watch her approach from under his hood, "I was wondering when I'd see you again, you waste of demonic energy. All our Father gave for us, and you're the result? Pathetic." she spat to the side, finally coming up behind Crowley.

He gently slid the knife out of his belt. He could take her down with him, at the very least, the pretentious bitch.

But for once, luck was on the general side of the Winchesters.

"Oh look, the Head bitch." the guard said, tilting his head at Meg, "What are you gonna do? Tell on me to daddy?" he grinned a self congratulatory smirk at the joke, but before Crowley could even comprehend what had just happened, Meg reached out and slapped him so hard he flew into an adjacent wall. He slumped to the floor with a groan.

"Go on," she said, smiling kindly at Crowley, "You help complete Father's work -" she turned back towards the guard who was slowly trying to get up, voice turning ugly with disgust, "I'll take out the trash."

Crowley dipped his head towards Meg for the first and hopefully last time in his life, and scuttled away, not knowing anything except that the moment he got out of here he would be drinking until he was blind. And possibly never slapping anyone again, lest he have something in common with Meg.

\-----

Lucifer swept into the room with the last ingredient, the ashes of a newborn fairy's wing, bathed in it's own blood and then burned in a dying red dwarf. He strode over to the table, where a cluster of hooded "children" parted before him, bowing and murmuring "Father" reverently under their breaths. Lucifer cast his gaze over the assembly of left over ingredients.

Meg walked up to his side, smiling with unadulterated joy, belying the hideous form that creeped beneath her current vessel's surface. Lucifer laid a gentle palm on her head before he turned towards the dark, undisturbed surface of the mixture.

He sprinkled it over the blender, watching the liquid inside froth and hiss as the magic began to set in, the machine no longer on.

"You have done well, my children." He murmured as the demons left, their joy at his approval echoing even in the carefully protected confines of his grace.

He picked up the blender and poured the steaming liquid into a thermos left for his use. He could only drink it - and all of it - right before he made his attempt.

Unless he wanted to be severely weakened when he arrived there and the entire army of heaven was waiting.

\---

The assembly watched in silence when Lucifer slighted on the site of Tedemption again.

 

\----  
The building had three levels, a two story building with a basement where all the food was stored. The second floor was for spying on those outside and where a hallways of bedrooms was. Sam and Dean had the two across each other at the farthest end.

 

 

\----  
Crowley opens his door to find himself face to face with a very dangerous, very serious angel. Before he can say a single word, the stormy faced individual cuts him off, his hand thrust into Crowley's face, three fourths of the remains of a warped root that smells particularly ripe.

"What is this." Castiel demands, squinting threateningly at the demon.

Crowley blinks at him, unimpressed, "It's a bloody piece of rotten vegetable, and if you don't get it out of my face very soon, Castiel, you're going to be missing a hand."

Castiel removed the offensive bacteria zoo from Crowley's immediate facial vicinity, but the unpleasant smell remained, as well as Castiel's severe expression.

"It is the remains of what you were supposed to poison Lucifer with." Casitel says gravely.

Crowley scoffed in annoyance and stepped aside so that the angel could step into his trailer. At this point he officially gave up on trying to keep it within normal hygiene code - he'd probably have nightmares with that smell if his luck kept up.

"It can't "poison" Lucifer, Castiel. that's the entire point of the bloody thing, because you can't kill him with it." Crowley walked over to the small, plush couch built into the wall of his new abode, and sat down so that he could look up at Castiel with proper disdain.

"All of it was barely enough to weaken him." Castiel snarled, "So that he would be weak enough for the Winchesters to kill! You'll notice that most of it is in my hand." his voice, already low, descended to deadly proportions.

Crowley was unmoved, "So, what?"

That threw Castiel off.

"I stumbled across some important - potentially inflammatory - information." Crowley begins.

When Castiel waits for him to keep going, he continues, "If we kill Lucifer, Michael goes insane and destroys the earth. Now, the only reason I personally care is because I'm earth side right now and I don't feel like relocating to this side of hell. You care because your whole excuse for being anti apocalypse was that so many people would die, right?"

Castiel narrows his eyes, not disagreeing. 

Crowley does a little flourish, " _So_ \- what if instead we do this the pacifistic-ish way, yeah?" 

Castiel growled, "There is no pacifistic way go about it."

"Ah ah ah~!" Crowley said, waving his finger in tandem to each word, "Wrong." 

Castiel glared at him, "Get to the point Crowley." He said, and his angel blade's tip became visible - " _Or the point will get to you._ " 

"Wow, lovely, you come up with that yourself or was it scripted by Squirrel?" Crowley said in disgust, "Listen, Lucifer has the hots for Sam. A giant angel crush. Kind of like you and Dean, now that I think about it-" 

" _Crowley_ " Castiel all but snarls. 

"He wants to make a good impression, okay? And showing what being human is all about is a great way to get them to bond and it's totally fine." Crowley rushed out. 

"That's it? You're gambling the world on the hopes that _Satan_ will somehow manage to fall in love with Sam and Sam will _return_ that affection?" Castle's voice has reached maximum low now, and the only reason he isn't yelling is sheer shock. 

"Ah, doesn't have to return the affection. Besides... I might have added one of my _own_ ingredients. _Off the list, mind you, but Lucifer wouldn't have cared if he saw it, anyways."_

"And _what_ was this mysterious ingredient, Crowley, that will just _happen_ to solve all of our problems?" Castiel sighed, deadpan. 

"Sassy angel." Crowley said, "I slipped in a good dose of _this_ little beauty in there." pulling out a single, small and frayed pigeon feather from his coat pocket. 

Castiel's eyes widened, "Is that...?" 

"You bet your feathery butt it is." Crowley said smugly, putting it back in. 

"But Chamuel has been dead for centuries. How did you get one of his feathers?" 

Crowley made a face, "It was hard, I'll tell you that much. Bloody near well met my end by cherubim. But -" he gave a slight shudder, "It's all over now, and I kept one for myself as you can see." 

Castiel blinked at him, "Why are you keeping it on your person?" 

Crowley's previously smiling face darkened, "Oy, I'm not asking for your criticism." He paused, "Besides, it smells nice." 

Castiel bent forward to sniff Crowley and then nodded his agreement, "It does cover your demonic scent very well."


End file.
